Cinder drift critique: top heavy mechanics are the wrong way to go *minor spoliers*

So finished the fight with some rather amusing reactions from people last night, including a "WTF THIS IS NORMAL?!?" winning. But the fight itself? Honestly I didn't enjoy it in the slightest compared to previous content.

Phase 1 isn't that bad, if anything it's a pretty standard boss battle with some creative aoes mixed in like the liquefy attack. By itself that part would have been alright for a new trial. But phase 2

Oh phase 2 . . .

SQ you really REALLY need to tell your fight designers that multi wipe mechanics with stupid short enrage timer windows on top like this are not fun. Forcing your players into perfect execution of mechanics instead of perfect execution of their job role and knowing your class (not that there is much to know after tanks and heals got dumbed down) is the wrong direction to go.

This got compounded when one of the tanks in our fight had never done the Ivalice chain and therefore had never seen the arrow mechanic. Not a good thing when that part can again easily result in a wipe if your tanks and healers don't know it.

We need more boss battles that are engaging and less fights that have players looking for videos to explain why they just wiped before or after a failure, i consider myself lucky to have a group that stuck it out through five.

And we need more fights that don't veer into spending more time assigning positions then actually battling the boss. My time in Titania EX comes to mind where we did just that. And the fight itself became trivial in the process. It wasn't about knowing my class, it was about knowing where to stand.

There is no skill in rote memorization of a wipe mechanic. Anyone who says "But it's harder" is missing the point because it's not. The only challenge is learning the mechanic. after which I honestly found the fight stupidly easy. Stand here, DPS, repeat, yawn. This is where cinder drift fails because you've made the fight repetitive and boring.

It's going to play out the exact same way every single time because of top heavy mechanics. Tanks must do X, healers must do Y, damage dealers must not derp after both. Failure of any of the above inside some silly short enrage timer window will result in wipe and do it again. And it doesn't matter after that what class, what role, what level of knowing your job comes into the fight if you have "assignments" instead of "gameplay"

Compare this to some of the SB content like the four lords battles (byakko being my fav) or the entire Ivalice arc with some hard as heck bosses, but none of which that had to rely on stupid wipe mechanics to the degree ruby does. Or Copied in ShB. I'll never get tired of taking on the giant mecha or seeing which room I end up in to play death dodge with ring lasers and floor traps. But after doing cinder once I have zero desire to go back to it past helping friends. And even less of a desire to go anywhere near the EX version, least not without looking at a video first [/sarcasm]

The content has only been out for a little over a day. It's also side content, not mandatory for advancing the MSQ's.

I'm pleased that we're getting more fights that shake things up a bit more than usual.

Sounds like the fight is doing it's job and is actually might bring some hurt. I welcome this. I rather a fight make you respect it instead of the normal slap slap slap they normally are.

Honestly I've done the fight about 4 times now with friends and the only difficult part I found was the circle aoe in pinwheel rotation.

This fight is very simple and at worse in rous will be one wipe and people will get over it.

I've gotten to around 65% on EX blind and EX is also manageable now that I've watched vids on how to handle said pinwheel aoe.

Second phase is also extremely easy, and if you're failing to meet it your party is either recovering from deaths or you just have people tanking the adds badly.

All in all normal is fine and should be what it is. Though I will state the fight is longer then I expected for an trial.

God forbid we actually have a challenging set of trials/raids instead of the laughable Hades EX that was said to be "Hard as Shinryu EX"

So what do you suggest?
Do away with AoE attacks entirely and just base the entire fight around an enrage timer, forcing you to perfect your job rotation and nothing else?

Skill is in executing your rotation at the same time as managing fight mechanics. That's why we have both mechanics and an enrage, which is perfectly comfortable in normal mode.

All mechanics were new at some point. So what if he hadn't played the Ivalice Raids? When you play the Ivalice Raids, you're encountering that mechanic for the first time anyway.

I played Ruby normal four times yesterday, each time clearing it with different friends for their first time, and with 4-6 other newbies each time too. Each time, the liquifaction and comets caused us a wipe, and each time we got it the second try. So what's the problem?
Can you really not bear to wipe even once?

What is the problem that we have a variety of combats? If all the Dungeon Crawlers were like Etrian Odyssey where the preparation is rewarded more than the combat itself would bore me a lot. I want variety I want to have to prepare 30 minutes before a fight and I also want to think about strategies in the combat itself like the Experience games.

Yesterday I had problems with this Trial because two Dancers had no idea of ​​doing DPS, not of doing the rotation, but that they had no idea of ​​ANYTHING they never used the dances in all the combat and when I arrived at the final dps check the boss still had the half life. We did? We kick them and complete them are relatively easy. I am happy to have bosses like these where people who do not have a minimum of knowledge will not be able to complete, it reminds me of my first time in Heavensward with The Aery where the Healer and the Tank kick the Ninja because I had absolutely no idea of Nothing and we couldn't pass the DPS check of the adds.

I think they should double down on making people respect mechs. I rather have that then just doing your rotation over and over again. I mean to be fair, both designs lead to the fights getting easier after you clear it anyway, least with the mechs having harsh wiping mechs that make you respect them there's a chance of it maybe lasting longer then just a dps check with nothing else in it.

Tho I also agree with we need more punishing mechs that can cause instant wipes not less.

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Originally Posted by Seraphor

Can you really not bear to wipe even once?

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A lot of people can't and it's really, really sad.

My party wiped 4 times.

Liquification, Comets, some bad play, Enrage. But we got it in the end. And I was glad. I didn't like one players wannabe dudebro attitude but I liked how others kept up a positive spirit and we pulled through. In fact it is why I enjoy doing content day 1 and blind. Overcoming a trial is what makes them rewarding per the experience. Not like tank and spank, stand in a corner while the boss does something slow and flashy, repeat and fall asleep.

Just be good at games and you have no problem~

I haven’t had a chance to do normal or EX for Ruby Weapon, but what exactly is the problem with level 80 content (i.e., endgame content) requiring some semblance of competency from those attempting it? I think the endgame needs more challenging content that aren’t Extremes or Savage—there’s a huge gap between them and the other endgame content (alliance raids, normal mode raids, “expert” dungeons), and it could stand to be bridged a little bit.

I’d rather have more punishing mechanics as opposed to free-falling for 2 minutes dodging balls that don’t even kill you.

Normal was stupid ez
Phase 2 was so easy and went by so fast that I barely remember it

It reminded me of Tsukuyomi at launch. It's not too complicated, but you have to actually wake up and pay attention to see what's going on.

It also reminded me of Tsukuyomi in that three people immediately dropped after one wipe because how dare people not have the mechanics memorized on launch day.

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

I haven’t had a chance to do normal or EX for Ruby Weapon, but what exactly is the problem with level 80 content (i.e., endgame content) requiring some semblance of competency from those attempting it? I think the endgame needs more challenging content that aren’t Extremes or Savage—there’s a huge gap between them and the other endgame content (alliance raids, normal mode raids, “expert” dungeons), and it could stand to be bridged a little bit.

I’d rather have more punishing mechanics as opposed to free-falling for 2 minutes dodging balls that don’t even kill you.

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Absolutely agree. To look back at a point where Ultimate didn't exist and Savage was the peak, Extreme was meant to be your proper challenge and the lead in to Savage. That difficulty was there to make you think and give you a rush when you're handling mechanics/keeping up dps.

If we're being so picky as to complain about a game slapping your wrist for failing a dps check mainly due to mechs not being handled right, then that gives off the impression we don't like being challenged. That we are willing to wade in the god awful pool of Hades normal where the fight is a spectacle but is mechanically extremely boring.

The only issue I'll have with this Trial post EX clear is the amount of people who will abandon it in Trials rou after a single wipe because they don't consider it a time investment. It's like Tsukuyomi normal all over again EDIT: Happy someone else mentioned Tsuku because when I was writing this post that thing came up LMAO.

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Originally Posted by Dragonkat

It's going to play out the exact same way every single time because of top heavy mechanics. Tanks must do X, healers must do Y, damage dealers must not derp after both. Failure of any of the above inside some silly short enrage timer window will result in wipe and do it again. And it doesn't matter after that what class, what role, what level of knowing your job comes into the fight if you have "assignments" instead of "gameplay"

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What you're describing are coordination checks, and it is testing how well the group works together. Double stack markers is a basic form of this. As you go up in difficulty they get more complex and stringent.

If you remove those and don't have a decent enrage you just end up with mostly telegraph dodge fests where you can just throw bodies at it until you win. (i.e Byakko, most alliance raid bosses after you kill A/B/C adds if they have any)

I found the second phase boring (even in EX), mostly because it just seemed disjointed and random. Like it didn't have any flow. It's like someone took a bunch of stuff and just glued them together sideways.

i dont know how anyone can enjoy byakko outside of his cool voice
its such a boring fight

My personal issue is that Ruby Extreme is ilvl 470. That is the same requirement for svg Eden. Svg Eden I understand that is raid tier content. Ex primals however have been more gear for the mid tier player. I work 6 days a week so getting into a raid static is not possible with my schedule. I enjoy doing ex primals and they released a new ex primal that requires me to have at least cleared Eden svg 1. Yea I am sure it isn't too bad I raided in stormblood and heavensward. But making it a requirement to have a full set of i470 gear just to do a new primal is a bit extreme and I feel is going to separate players between raiders and casual. When that happens ill probably quite because I don't enjoy casual play and can not currently raid atm. This also makes crafted gear and the 24 man raid gear pretty much useless. (previous patch gear wise) Why didn't they make it ilvl 465. That makes more sense and means more ppl can get into it. On top of that so many clear parties and learning parties are gonna require that ilvl. I enjoy the fight and im really upset that I can not just jump in and learn it because they decided to make it a ridiculous ilvl. If they want to release new content at the current highest ilvl that's fine but then they need to increase the options for that gear. Tome gear and raid gear is WAY too limited. Allow crafted gear to go to max ilvl near the end of the patch. Allow 24 man raid gear to be upgraded to max ilvl AT THE END OF THE PATCH. This way all players can enjoy the new ex primal content without being required to raid. Also half my tome gear doesn't have crit which is what I stack. That's why I want more options.

The neo-ishguardian gears are ilvl 480 if you have a lot of money to buy it from the Market Board. No need for Eden Savage.
You can mix and match them with upgraded deepshadow gears.

There is only so much you can do to "demonstrate mastery" after commiting the rotation to your muscle memory. IMO true mastery of a job comes from mixing the rotation to the mechanics. At least from a DRG's point of view. A good understanding of your job comes not just from executing your rotation well but when and how to tweak it depending on the mechanics that are thrown at you.

I'm sorry that you feel that fighs that rely more on positioning are not the way to go. i personally enjoy the balance of both and as melee part of the fun is figuring out how to stick to the boss despite what it throws at you. For me there is a degree of fun in that. It's almost as fun as (once a blue mooon) when I get that random PUG team that will not give up and you gradually watch everyone getting things right until you get that clear.

With that said I like Byakko's fight but I'm a biased DRG who loves droping from the skies at mach 5 speed.

edit: i liked the fight. i'm glad the devs are gradually moving from the "pay attention to that 1 mechanic in the entire fight that will wipe you if you fail" formula they used at the begining of the expansion. boy was that boring...

Phantasmagoria is uncapped now, and upgrade tokens can be bought from Clan Nutsy or with coins from the Copied Factory (weapon upgrades can only be bought with coins), so 470 isn't that hard, even without accounting for crafted gear or Eden's Verse.

I haven't done this fight yet (and maybe I won't since I have no ambition to do any PvE in FFXIV anymore) but what I personally find the most annoying is the length and linearity of the encounters with insta wipe mechanics coming late in the fight after long sequences of just visually impressive tediousness and even boss immune transitions or narrative intermissions with very boring adds and mechanics.

SE has not ever mastered the art of cyclic PvE design well. A set script just starting over is still linear but if you have signature mechanics constantly going out at a faster pace with some overlaps you have the base model for the cyclic encounter (which Blizzard are experts at btw). What I find with a cyclic design as opposed to a linear script is that it keeps me much more entertained.

In FFXIV I die a lot because I lose focus when mechanics are boring. I daydream and suddenly realize I'm positioned wrong for the insta wipe mechanic.

Imo ShB PvE so far feels more rigid and stiff than ever and judging from this thread and what the OP claims it hasn't gotten better as of this patch. A matter of taste I guess but I just can't appreciate it.

It's honestly about time we raised the bar on normal content. :T

I haven't done EX, but normal was fine. We wiped once because most of the team died on the quicksand and we didn't recover in time for the double stack. After that we took a sec to arrange things and cleared it on our second attempt. We just kind of stumbled through the second half of the fight.

It didn't seem too bad. I'm sure it will be even easier once people start putting out guides.

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Originally Posted by Sasarayu

I haven't done this fight yet (and maybe I won't since I have no ambition to do any PvE in FFXIV anymore) but what I personally find the most annoying is the length and linearity of the encounters with insta wipe mechanics coming late in the fight after long sequences of just visually impressive tediousness and even boss immune transitions or narrative intermissions with very boring adds and mechanics.

SE has not ever mastered the art of cyclic PvE design well.

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By saying SE has not done X, you discredit all the other games under Square Enix, and to that extent Square Soft's belt. You should be considering the XIV developers specifically, and- you are stating opinion as fact.

When people say SE can't make good boss fights (a broad term here for the sake of debate), they are saying TWEWY, every FF ever, Kingdom Hearts and all their other major franchises do not have good boss fights.

Specificity is important.

You saying you're bored is a you problem, not XIV's. That's your personal taste and sure, people may agree with you. But it's still a personal gripe, not factual. And clearly there's something keeping you subbed otherwise you wouldn't be able to post on the forums.

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Originally Posted by Duskane

i dont know how anyone can enjoy byakko outside of his cool voice
its such a boring fight

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the free fall part of the fight was fun.

I like fights that force people to learn how to git gud. They're healthy for the game

Ruby was the best trial since Shinryu honestly. Finally some good, fresh mechanics with lots of overlap to pay attention to. Trials have been hella disappointing for majority of SB and SHB so far, but this was a really nice surprise. The enrage in EX was oddly lenient, but that's probably good for this difficulty - it'll make for a better learning transition for people who'd like to start savage.

Idk what does op mean with having to watch guides - done both normal and EX blind from start to finish and it's been a blast to go through. Of course you'll need to see one before tackling it with randoms later on, but that's standard practice for any party finder content.

Eden normal was also pretty great, hopefully savage holds up as well. I didn't like majority of SHB content until now, but seems this patch might be turning things around.

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Originally Posted by Stanelis

the free fall part of the fight was fun.

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Not when you were farming EX for the mount. It did not age very well, in my opinion.


And it still wasn’t dangerous in EX mode.

I kinda stopped doing the extreme fights in pf these days due to people lacking any patience. It just seemed like people would get upset and would leave after two wipes, and this would consistently happen between extreme groups, so now I stick to savage which feels like people stick around longer because they actually care more about savage over extreme?

They need to make standard stuff like dungeons and trials harder so when people join savage they have some idea of how stuff works and have a mindset going in that learning is required, because previous content has been establishing that mindset. It would make pf life easier for everyone I think. :)

The fight is actually fine, i could not try ex yet, but i just wished before it there was a solo trial of the same level, locking ppl from it if they are too bad >_>

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Originally Posted by Satarn

Idk what does op mean with having to watch guides - done both normal and EX blind from start to finish and it's been a blast to go through. Of course you'll need to see one before tackling it with randoms later on, but that's standard practice for any party finder content.

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usually after a rather short time there a mostly groups that demand you to watch a guide, even if you open your own one it would not feel as without guide ppl feel like wasting their time...

The ex fight is pretty simple and punishing if you’re to greedy. In all honesty, the second phase is way easier to handle than the first. The checkpoint for the second phase is a nice touch..coming from hades which was long as hell.

Huh? After running Ruby Weapon once I thought the fight was tuned to be quite easy. Even my duty finder PUG group on day one took it down with no wipes and less than a handful of deaths throughout the entire fight. We didn't even come anywhere remotely close to a wipe, and there were only 2 mechanics that I can recall never seeing before but were easy to figure out from their telegraphs. (The spiral arms one and the cross-hatch arena-wide AoE) Did I just get lucky?

My only critique is a point of preference: I didn't like the inclusion of Nael as part of the fight.

Yes, I get it. End of an Era was a dope-ass cutscene. T9 was hard as hell and a pretty sweet fight overall, I get it. Story-wise, the reasoning for the inclusion of Nael in the Ruby Weapon fight was sound... but I'm just tired of this particular reference. The sight of Dalamud crashing down on us does nothing for me, neither does having to hide behind a rock to survive a meteor strike. These, to me, feel tired, and I have to italicize that part cause I know that Nael hasn't actually been referenced all that much. Last we got of her was in Bahamut's ultimate trial.

I actually think the side content in this game should have gotten harder, sooner. Unless I am mistaken, this is the tightest DPS check outside of ex+ difficulty content, right? But it's honestly rather generous; first time I did it, we cleared the trial our first time even though we had a lot of people screwing up. The second time, we kept failing, and you could see why: PLD not using magic, healers not doing damage, DPS not using party damage buffs, etc. I think FFXIV needs some wake-up calls outside of ex/savage to get players to look into themselves and see if they can improve somewhere.

I am OK with main scenario content being pretty gentle but I like the idea of the optional stuff posing a little more challenge; looking back at Stormblood, think Suzaku and Seiryu also did a good job of saying "This isn't going to cut it anymore. You need to pay attention." Phase 2 is almost target dummy levels of simplicity, being the perfect testing grounds for basic fundamentals of your job.

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Originally Posted by Dragonkat

SQ you really REALLY need to tell your fight designers that multi wipe mechanics with stupid short enrage timer windows on top like this are not fun. Forcing your players into perfect execution of mechanics instead of perfect execution of their job role and knowing your class (not that there is much to know after tanks and heals got dumbed down) is the wrong direction to go.

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I prefer fights with diverse mechanics and steep penalties for failing to do them correctly (but not so steep that failing just once will kill you outright, unless the tell for the mechanic is very obvious). 5.2 brought a lot of very interesting bosses. Also class rotations need better tells - I'd rather keep my eyes on the fight than glued to my hotbars watching when abilities are coming off cooldown.

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Originally Posted by Dragonkat

There is no skill in rote memorization of a wipe mechanic.

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So instead you want lame, easily avoidable mechanics during which you can press your DPS buttons in a memorized sequence? God forbid having to dodge a mechanic and getting out of phase with the rotation.

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Originally Posted by Dragonkat

This got compounded when one of the tanks in our fight had never done the Ivalice chain and therefore had never seen the arrow mechanic. Not a good thing when that part can again easily result in a wipe if your tanks and healers don't know it

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It literally shows you how to do it

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Originally Posted by tdb

I prefer fights with diverse mechanics and steep penalties for failing to do them correctly (but not so steep that failing just once will kill you outright, unless the tell for the mechanic is very obvious). 5.2 brought a lot of very interesting bosses. Also class rotations need better tells - I'd rather keep my eyes on the fight than glued to my hotbars watching when abilities are coming off cooldown.

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For job cooldowns that are longer (like WHM’s Temperance), I have them set up on a separate hotbar directly beneath my character model so I can see then in my periphery. Otherwise, learning your rotation throughout a fight eventually builds the muscle memory you need to just know when they’ll be up again. I don’t think tracking cooldowns is a huge issue unless you’re new to things/inexperienced with a job or fight.

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Originally Posted by Dragonkat

Forcing your players into perfect execution of mechanics instead of perfect execution of their job role and knowing your class

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Change the "instead of" to and, this is exactly what SE should have been doing all along. This game has plenty of faceroll content that a lot of players afk their way through, I don't think it's too much to ask to have at least a few fights that require you to execute mechanics on top of knowing your job/role. We honestly need more content like this.

The fight just takes memory and practice. I've literally went in with a practice group and beat it in two lock outs on Extreme. I personally think it's fine, it requires you to do the mechanic correctly and it's heavily forgiving in phase 1.

This is why SE will never have a PTR for FFXIV lol. No one can agree on anything.

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Originally Posted by Burningskull

This is why SE will never have a PTR for FFXIV lol. No one can agree on anything.

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Why would they even need a PTR when they stick to the same formula and design concepts forever? Maybe it's a case of "why change what isn't broken" to some but PTR is highly experimental and experimenting is not really ever a thing in FFXIV and when it is (rarely) we end up with broken classes and bugs for an entire patch (three months or more, 5.0 SMN one example).

When WoW has similarly bugged and badly designed classes PTR has usually warned Blizzard beforehand but Blizzard don't care/don't have the resources and go live with the trainwreck anyway. SE don't even let people test it and warn them so I don't know what's worse in this case.